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Food Fight
Detective Jim Longworth walks toward the lab, clearly on a mission. Reading Jim's mind, Medical Examiner Carlos Sanchez catches up to him and asks if he's eaten lunch yet. Jim says he's in pursuit of lunch and asks Daniel Green if he got a hit on the BOLO he requested. Daniel hands him a piece of paper. Was the BOLO for a hit and run? Stolen vehicle? Nope. Jim is on the hunt for tacos. From out of nowhere, Bureau Chief Jennifer Starke appears behind Jim and Carlos. After hearing them mention lunch, she asks if she can come along. Jim tells her they're going to a famous taco food truck, The Art of Boar; the name is a clever spin-off of the famous book, The Art of War. Jim normally hits up the place for breakfast, but it wasn't in its usual spot and there were no Twitter updates on its location, so he put a BOLO out for it. Jennifer disapproves of Jim's use of a BOLO for lunch purposes, telling him that it's against FDLE policy. But since she's hungry, she'll let it slide this one time. Jim, Carlos, and Jennifer walk up to a closed food truck sitting in a deserted parking lot. It's definitely not a desirable business location. Jim immediately senses something is off about the scene and snoops around the truck. He tries opening the back door, but it's locked. After calling out for Tony, the chef and owner, and not getting a response, Jim lifts himself up onto the ledge of the ordering window and peeks inside. He sees Tony dead and on his back, blood oozing out of his chest from a bullet wound. Hungry onlookers form a line in front of Tony's truck, but Daniel corrals and disperses them, saying it's a crime scene. Standing away from the crowd, Jim talks to Callie on the phone, who tells him she's starting ER rounds with Miranda that day. After a cute game of "you hang up first," they disconnect. Annoyed that he still hasn't had lunch, Jim meets up with Carlos, Jennifer, and Daniel. Carlos reports that Tony died from a single gunshot wound to the chest around 4 that morning. A full autopsy will rule out any secondary causes, but it is pretty obvious the murder weapon was a gun. Daniel says the cash register was empty. Could this have been a robbery gone bad? Jim says that it's doubtful because food trucks are a cash only business and robbing one at the beginning of the shift wouldn't make sense. He thinks it's a murder staged to look like robbery. Jennifer listens intently, somewhat impressed by Jim's train of thought. She asks him if Tony had any enemies. Jim says he probably did because he was considered to be a rock star of the food truck business. He always had a long line of customers and a ton of Twitter fans, but he was also a hard ass and was very particular about his food and any special requests he received. Inside the truck, Carlos tells the team that the shooter was standing inside the truck by the passenger door when he or she pulled the trigger. The bullet went into Tony and through the refrigerator door behind him. Carlos opens the door, revealing a hanging leg of ham with a bullet in it: a 9 mm. Jim notes that Tony seemed like the kind of guy who would have a gun for protection and wonders aloud if the shooter got to the gun before he did. Jennifer asks Jim if he has any suspects and he mentions that he knows one food truck owner who hated Tony. Jim heads off to his car with Jennifer in tow. Jim doesn't want her tagging along, so he tells her he doesn't really do the whole "partner thing." She asks how she's supposed to shadow him and Jim just grins and suggests she look through The Art of War for a crafty move. He gets into his car and speeds off, leaving Jennifer there, ever-so-slightly amused. Young 20-somethings hang out by the boardwalk, waiting in line for some grub from the Red Koi food truck, which is known for its delicious Korean BBQ. Jim jumps into the truck and owner Lana Kim quickly pulls out a bat, ready to fight. She tells him to get out of the truck or she'll hit him. Jim quickly flashes his badge as Lana drops the bat and apologizes, telling Jim she's been on edge ever since what happened to Tony. She recognizes Jim as the "annoying guy who can't handle spicy food." Lana turns her back to him and continues cooking. He smirks, telling her that he noticed her lines have gotten longer now that Tony's gone. Lana doesn't like what he is insinuating. He tells her that he knew Tony was her biggest competitor and Korean food is a bit of a harder sell in the area. He also said he knows they had a lot of beefs recently, but Lana chalks that up to normal chef rivalry, although at the end of the day, they respected each other. Jim asks her where she was at 4 a.m. and she tells him she was sleeping, like every other chef except Tony, who would get up around that time to start braising his boar. Jim asks for some food to go. Lana looks annoyed. Dr. Miranda Buckley stands at the nurses' station looking over paperwork. Callie and three other medical students stand in a cluster. A fourth one runs up and joins the group. Miranda, not pleased with his tardiness, quickly moves down the hallway to start the rounds. The students all follow as Callie sidles up next to her and tries to break the ice. Callie says she's very happy to be there and thinks she could learn from her. Miranda smiles and asks if Callie has picked a specialty yet. She responds that she's thinking about emergency medicine. It's something she has experience in and she likes the fast pace and variety. Miranda says that she needs to pick a hospital that's the right fit for her; that is, if she even gets an offer. She hands Callie the patient's chart and she quickly scans it as Miranda address the group, telling them that the patient is exhibiting difficulty breathing and has a history of heart failure. Callie points out that if he had a central venous catheter it would be easier to monitor the measurement of his right atrial pressure. Miranda holds a needle and stares at Callie; she's one step ahead of her, but seems impressed with her knowledge. Miranda inserts the finder needle into the carotid artery, but has trouble placing it at the right angle. The patient winces. She tries again with the same result. Callie offers to help since she's done this a million times as a nurse, and takes the needle from Miranda. A second later, the procedure is finished and the patient is comfortable. Everyone seems impressed, except for Miranda, who gives Callie a dirty look. Callie realizes she completely embarrassed her. She blew it. On their way to Daniel, Carlos tells Jim that if Jennifer wants to follow him around and observe him, he can't stop her. Daniel informs them that there's a nasty fight going on between the food truck chefs and the boardwalk restaurants. The restaurant owners are lobbying for a new law, which would require the trucks to park 300 feet away from their establishments. The law would essentially ban them on the boardwalk. Daniel shows the team a video from a city council meeting where Tony really has it out with the district councilman, Greg Doucet. FDLE Regional Director Colleen Manus and Jennifer walk up to the group. Jim quickly apologizes to Jennifer for not letting her come along when he went to talk to Lana. She said no need to explain; she'll just have to observe him in his natural surroundings. He won't even know she's there. Manus tells everyone that Doucet is a war hero and also a friend of law enforcement, so try not to go overboard with him. When the FDLE was looking to open a substation in Palm Glade, Doucet paved the way with the Chamber of Commerce to lease this building. She looks at Jim and tells him it's fine to question him, but to keep shenanigans to a minimum. Jim's cell phone buzzes and he looks at it to see a tweet from Lana to her followers saying that Doucet is having dinner with "the enemies" at Caffe Russo for the food truck debate that night. There will definitely be shenanigans. Caffe Russo is a sad shell of its former self. Old Chianti bottles hang from the ceiling and outdated decor lines the walls. This family business may have been hip in the 70s, but now the few customers who are in the place are in their seventies. Jim finds the owner, Vanessa Russo, standing by the front door. He notices there are photos everywhere of Vanessa's parents and grandparents and one of her and Doucet, smiling and shaking hands in his office — the perfect photo op. After a quick chat, Jim moves passed Vanessa to join Doucet, who's sitting at a nearby table with some guests. He introduces himself and Doucet asks how the substation is holding up. Jim grins, telling him that he understands; Doucet's a friend of law enforcement. After Doucet's guests leave the table, Jim asks him why he picked Caffe Russo as the place to host his dinner party. Doucet tells him that he likes to support local businesses. He heard what happened to Tony and he's always been worried something like that would happen because food trucks attract an "unsavory element" to the community. He suggests Jim question some of the local homeless people. Jim doesn't like this guy. He holds up his phone and shows Doucet a video of Tony arguing with him at a recent City Council meeting. In the video, Tony yells at Doucet, telling him that he's trampling on small businesses and only cares about the money he's getting from the Restaurant Association. He takes off his shoes, throwing them at Doucet one at a time, hitting him. Jim hysterically laughs during the shoe throwing scene. Not amused, Doucet tells him that the experience was humiliating. Jim looks at him and says that it's also a possible motive for killing Tony. Back at the station, Jim tells Jennifer and Manus that he brought Doucet back for questioning. Manus tells him to keep it civil. Daniel hands Jim a file. He reads it and heads towards the interrogation room, with Jennifer following him. Jim sits across from Doucet as Jennifer watches from a two-way mirror. Doucet tells Jim that the video blew the situation out of proportion. Tony apologized to him afterwards and the two were on civil terms. But Jim doesn't believe him. He thinks it's odd that Tony called Doucet, a decorated Marine, a "jarhead son-of-a-bitch," during the meeting. He pulls out a picture of Tony in his Navy uniform and asks if their beef was some kind of inter-service rivalry, which Doucet claims it wasn't. Jim finds this all this interesting, because for as long as he knew Tony, he never mentioned being a retired Navy Seal, whereas Doucet is very open about his service. Doucet claims that he and Tony shared stories about their time in the service. They used the shoe incident as a catalyst to find a middle ground on the food truck issue. Jim tells Doucet that it seems that he is only concerned about the Political Action Committee, which included members of the Restaurant Association, since they would help his run for governor. It would be to his benefit to get rid of a rabble-rouser like Tony. Doucet tells him that he's been staying neutral and stresses that he didn't kill Tony; he saw enough bloodshed in Iraq. When Jim asks where he was at 4 a.m., he says the treadmill. He's an early riser because "once a Marine, always a Marine." Jim exits the interrogation room to find Jennifer waiting for him. She asks him if he thinks Doucet killed Tony for political gain. He says that's a good theory and stops in front of the men's room. He points to the sign and Jennifer leaves him to his business. But Jim walks off in the other direction toward Daniel; he had no intention of using the bathroom, he just wanted Jennifer off his back. Daniel tells him that Tony had a registered, military issue Beretta 9 mm that they couldn't find in his apartment or truck. Carlos reports that he did find a substance on the floor of the truck: a type of soil. He also analyzed Tony's stomach contents and found that he had eaten eggplant Parmesan around 10 p.m the night before he was killed. Jim checks his Twitter feed, noticing that Tony closed his truck at that time. The closest Italian place was just 100 feet away: Caffe Russo. At the restaurant, Jim asks Vanessa, who is bussing some tables, why she didn't tell him that Tony ate at her restaurant the night before he died. She tells him that he came in to smooth some things over since they weren't the best of friends. Jim says she must be upset because when the food trucks came over, her place took a hit. She acknowledges it. When Jim suggests maybe the restaurant wasn't doing so well because of the red pleather chairs and geriatric menu, Vanessa gets defensive and says while her food is traditional, it's delicious and she has plenty of regulars. Jim gestures to an elderly couple eating dinner, and mentions that most restaurants make their money off alcohol and it didn't look like her patrons were big drinkers. Vanessa says that all businesses have their ups and downs and she's sure business will pick up. She walks by a waitress sitting at the bar, staring despondently at the almost empty dining room. Annoyed, Vanessa tells her to go wipe off the menus and then heads into kitchen, Jim on her heels. She places a bin down next to a sink. Across from the sink, a plumber replaces pipes inside a large hole in the wall. Jim tells her that it must be hard watching the restaurant her grandparents built up die on her watch. Ticked off, Vanessa tells him that the food trucks have it easier because they don't have to worry about any overhead like linens, glassware, constant air conditioning, paying waiters, or, strict health and building codes. Most recently she was forced to replace some pipes. Jim tells her that with the rock star of the food truck scene gone, it will be easier to kick the trucks off the boardwalk. Vanessa laughs at Jim's comment, saying that Tony used to be a fry cook at a greasy spoon and Lana was the one who is responsible for his success. A crowd lines up in front of The Art of Boar. Holding a folder, Daniel is again shooing people away from the truck. Jim and Carlos roll up and Jim informs everyone that Lana, Tony's rival, was actually his mentor. Daniel says they still haven't been able to track down the murder weapon, but Carlos was able to find out what the soil was: Zoysia sod. It has gotten more use in Florida in the last 10 years, but it doesn't narrow anything down yet. Daniel hands Jim the folder, which is filled with racy texts and pictures exchanged between Lana and Tony. These two were clearly more than teacher-student. As all three of the guys stare at a particularly racy photo, they feel eyes on them and look up to see Jennifer, who tells them to not mind her, she's just observing. Callie passes by the doctor's locker room in the hospital and overhears Miranda talking about her. She hears Miranda tell her co-worker that Callie is just another nurse who missed her calling and that her fiancé was 10 times more qualified than her for the job. The only reason Callie got into the program over him is because she's more than just "friends" with Dr. Avery. Callie is mortified. Jim reads the racy text exchange between Lana and Tony out loud from a folder as he and Carlos amble up to Red Koi's ordering window. Furious, Lana jumps out and tries to grab Jim's folder. Jim says that the texts she sent to Tony went from professional to dirty to very dirty to just plain angry. He asks how upset she was when Tony called things off. A bit calmer now, Lana tells them that when she first met Tony, he was green, but she helped shape him into the food artist he became. She admits she was upset after he left her, but not enough to kill him. She loved him. When asked about Tony's gun, she says he keeps it on the truck. Jim says it's not there anymore. Before Carlos hops into Lana's truck to search for the gun, he tells her that he's going to need to confiscate her shoes for testing at the lab. Jim turns towards the crowd and tells them that Red Koi is closed for the rest of the night. Lana and the crowd are not pleased. Callie approaches Miranda, who is looking over a chart at the nurses' station. She tells her that she wants to set something straight; her relationship with Dr. Avery has never been anything more than a friendship and that she would appreciate it if Miranda stopped spreading rumors about her. Seeing Miranda's shocked and embarrassed face, Callie says she'd really love the opportunity to start over with her. She's had to make all of her own opportunities and has been dreaming about being a doctor since she was a teenager. It's not just a whim. She never meant to displace Miranda's fiancé and would like her support. Miranda asks if she's done talking. Callie shakes her head in disappointment, and Miranda moves past her, getting back to work. Jim walks into the station with two bags of food from Red Koi. Jennifer stares at him and sniffs at the bag. Jim folds and hands her one of them. Jennifer says that according to some of the Twitter feeds she follows, he's not making a lot of friends down by the boardwalk. She asks him if he really believes Lana killed Tony. When he nods his head, she points out that most women tend to internalize their feelings of rejection, not act out violently. She smirks at Jim's new working theory: Lana's passion for Tony is what drove her to murder. Jim tells her it's not that much of a long shot because passion is a strong motive for murder. Breaking the tension, Manus approaches the two and says Daniel pulled Tony's phone records; he called Doucet at 3:57 a.m. the day he was murdered. She had Daniel go through the councilman's schedule for the last week and found he was at a ribbon cutting ceremony for an Iraq war memorial the day before the murder. Carlos took a sample from the freshly planted sod from the grounds to see if it was a match to the soil in the truck, which it was. Manus says to bring Doucet in. Shaking hands with some Council members, Doucet stands outside City Hall. Jim joins the group and Doucet tells him that the food truck law just passed. Jim walks past Doucet and into his office and goes straight to the wall, where a framed 9 mm handgun hangs. He turns towards Doucet, asking if he needs a warrant or if he can just take it. Then he changes his mind and says he's just going to take it. Back at the police station, Doucet sits in the hot seat as Jim questions him. Jim points out that what better way of making his case against the "vagrants" that the food truck attracts, than a robbery/homicide on the boardwalk? Jim suggests that Doucet staged the murder as a robbery and shows him Tony's phone records. Jim can also place Doucet in the truck since the sod from the ribbon cutting ceremony matched the soil found inside the truck. Doucet says he and Tony were working on a plan, a compromise that would make the entire district happy. When Jim asks Doucet what he was doing in Tony's truck at 4 a.m., he says it was something "only two military men could understand." He maintains that he did not kill Tony. Jim stares at him, telling him that he might want to call his lawyer. Outside the interrogation room, Daniel catches up to Jim and hands him some printed out photos from Tony's cell phone, except these aren't racy ones of Lana. They're photos of Tony and Vanessa sitting close together at Caffe Russo. It looks like the unlikely pair were an item. Jim cuts the line of customers at Red Koi, while inside the truck, Lana gives him a death stare. A few customers pull out their cell phones and start texting and tweeting about him. Jim shows her the pictures of Tony and Vanessa. Lana was obviously not over him. She admits she was upset, but not enough to kill him. She tells Jim that she took those pictures in the morning, which takes him by surprise. Lana says that Tony would stop by Caffe Russo for an espresso every morning before his shift. As usual, Vanessa was there early because she baked fresh bread for the day, one of the "only things" the restaurant still did well. Jim takes this in. A new theory is brewing in his head. Callie and Jim chat on the phone, reminiscing and missing each other. She tells him that she's excited to spend the weekend together, but her mood completely changes once she brings up her work schedule on her computer. She reads it aloud, telling Jim that Miranda has scheduled her to work the graveyard shift all week. It looks like she won't be able to see Jim that weekend after all. Frustrated, Callie tells Jim about her earlier encounter with Miranda. He tells her to hang in there and jokes that she'll eventually wear her down, just like she wore him down. Jim walks into the lab, a bit upset over the tough time Callie is having in Atlanta. Carlos senses this, and tells him that medical school is tough, but Callie is a tough woman and will handle it. Getting back to the case, he says the Doucet's gun hasn't been fired in a while and isn't even military issued. He got it at a gun show in Orlando. Daniel hands Jim Doucet's "military" file. He scans it, nodding his head. His suspicions were correct; Doucet was never in the military. Tony must have called him out on his lie. Jim enters Doucet's office and crosses to his desk of memorabilia. Doucet stops his conversation with a two co-workers and tells Jim to stop harassing him or he'll sue him for defamation of character, slander, and libel. Jim smirks, asking Doucet if he told the same thing to Tony after he found out Doucet was a fraud. Jim snaps cuffs on Doucet, telling him that impersonating a member of the military is illegal. A picture of him in his surplus store bought uniform is all the D.A. needs to make sure he gets jail time. Jim cuffs him and escorts him out. Once again, Jim sits across from Doucet in the interrogation room. On the table is a newspaper with a photo of Doucet at the memorial ceremony. Jim tells him that Tony knew about his lie, but once he saw him on the cover of the morning paper (which comes out at 4 a.m.) he couldn't take it anymore. Tony called him that morning as soon as the sun came up and said he was going to expose him. That's when Doucet snapped. Doucet admits to lying about being in the military and explains that he used the lie to butter up an agent at a bank to get a loan once, and kept it up since. He says that he begged Tony not to tell anyone, but that he was going to go viral with it. Doucet admits to paying Tony a visit that morning, but swears he was alive when he left the truck. He doesn't have the guts to shoot anyone. All he was trying to do was broker peace between the food trucks and the restaurants before something bad happened. Jim listens, mulling over something in his head, then gets up and tells Doucet to sit tight. Someone will be in shortly to read him his rights for impersonating a Marine. At Caffe Russo, Vanessa hands Jim an espresso. He tells her that it's a shame that places like her restaurant have to fight to stay open. Between the never-ending health and building codes to having to replace utilities, it's tough. He glances at her, saying that the pipes she was forced to replace probably worked just fine. Vanessa stares back at Jim, confused by where he's going with this. He says he can see why Tony would want to hang out there in the morning, drinking espresso while his boar braised. He also says he could see how Lana would think Vanessa and Tony were having an affair. But Vanessa adamantly denies that anything romantic was going on. Suddenly, there's a loud bang in the kitchen. Jim digs into his pocket and hands Vanessa a search warrant. She looks at it and runs into the kitchen, where she finds Daniel standing with a police officer, who is hacking away at the wall the plumbers were working on earlier with a sledgehammer. Vanessa objects; she just had the wall fixed. Jim tells her that Doucet was dragging his feet on the food truck ban. He was promising the brick and mortars one thing, while feeding the food truck owners another. But with the vote just days away, and Tony hell bent on defeating the ban, that morning when she showed up to bake bread and saw Tony and Doucet talking, she thought Tony was cooking up her demise. So she killed him. That's why she never told Jim about waking up early to bake bread, because she definitely would have heard a gun go off at 4 a.m., especially if she was the one pulling the trigger. By being forced by the city to replace some pipes in the kitchen, Vanessa had the perfect hiding spot for the weapon. Daniel reaches into the wall, pulls out a 9 mm, and places it in a plastic bag. It's Tony's gun. Two deputies cuff Vanessa and cart her off. At the station, Jennifer congratulates Jim for solving the case. She says it was a crime of passion after all — passion for food. She asks him if he'd like to grab some food at one of the food trucks, but he tells her he has special dinner plans. Working the graveyard shift, Callie fills out patient files as she picks at her salad. A large brown, greasy bag suddenly plops down in front of her. She looks up to see Jim. Totally surprised, she gets up and hugs him. They break open the bag of delicious fried chicken and Jim tells her to unleash the venting. Callie wastes no time complaining about Miranda, ants, and a weird smell in her apartment. He grins, listening to Callie's pent up grievances, which he couldn't be happier to hear. References http://www.aetv.com/the-glades/episode-breakdowns/food-fight/